Instruction and pragmatic competence how adult learners improve pragmatic ability in the classroom, with special reference to the EFL setting

INSTRUCTION AND PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE: HOW ADULT LEARNERS IMPROVE PRAGMATIC ABILITY IN THE CLASSROOM, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE EFL SETTING -by Thu Nguyen - Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of English Language and Literature University of Northern Iowa May, 2003 This Research Paper by: Thu Nguyen Entitled: INSTRUCTION AND PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE: HOW ADULT LEARNERS IMPROVE PRAGMATIC ABILITY IN THE CLASSROOM, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE EFL SETTING has been approved as meeting the research paper requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of English Language and Literature _ Date First reader _ Date Second reader In learning a foreign language, classrooms are usually learners’ major source of information about language and its use When people learn a language, most of them want to use it to communicate effectively; in other words, learners need to develop pragmatic competence, which is the ability to use language in acceptable ways This pragmatic ability will help learners produce appropriate utterances in the right contexts For example, in America, if one spilled coffee on someone else by accident what should he or she say: “I’m sorry.” or “I’m terribly sorry.” or “I’m a careless person, I hate myself, please forgive me”? The first two apologies are suitable behaviors in the U.S However, the last one, which may be appropriate in some countries such as Vietnam, is far too apologetic and odd to Americans Thanks to knowing vocabulary and grammar, learners in the example above can produce utterances correctly but depending on their knowledge of pragmatics, they may choose the appropriate or inappropriate apology Therefore, knowledge of vocabulary and grammar of a target language is necessary, but pragmatic competence is also needed for learners to communicate successfully Teachers need to know what pragmatic competence is and how to teach it in order to lead their students to learn and use the target language effectively Despite the importance of pragmatic competence in second language teaching, we can only find a limited amount of studies related to instructions in different aspects of pragmatic competence Target-based teaching proposals for L2 English include those of Holmes and Brown (1987) on complimenting and Myers-Scotton and Bernstein (1988) on conversational structure and management In addition, Bardovi-Harlig, Hartford, Mahan-Taylor, Morgan, and Reynolds (1991) have contributed ideas regarding conversational closings For proposals based on native speaker and interlanguage data, Rose (1994) studied requesting and Bouton (1994) considered the comprehension of indirect questions However, these studies, except the one by Bouton, did not focus on the relationship between instruction and learners’ development of pragmatic competence Kasper and Rose (2001) state that so far only Wildner-Bassett (1986) has addressed this area in her book In this paper I will explore how instruction can facilitate learners’ pragmatic competence To discuss why and how this may be done, I will provide a critical literature overview addressing the following questions: What is pragmatic competence? Why it is important to help learners develop it? What is the goal of students and teachers in the development of pragmatic competence? How L2 learners acquire pragmatic competence? What issues are debated regarding teaching pragmatics in the EFL classroom? What should teachers to raise students’ awareness and develop pragmatic competence? Understanding these points will help English teachers to learn more about the importance of development students’ pragmatic competence and why they need to enhance their own pragmatic ability in order to impart this knowledge to students What is Pragmatic Competence? Why it is Important to Help Learners Develop it? In 1980 Canale and Swain considered pragmatic ability as “rules of use” and classified it as a part of “sociolinguistic competence” which was combined with “grammatical competence” and “strategic competence” to establish “communicative competence” In 1983, Canale added “discourse competence” as the fourth component However, realizing the importance of pragmatics in communication, Leech (1983) and Thomas (1983) argue that pragmatic competence goes beyond the standard definition of communicative competence People not only need language to express their ideas, but they also need to know how to choose the right linguistic expression that applies to the specific context and culture in which they are interacting Leech and Thomas acknowledge the complexity of pragmatics when they divide it into two parts: “pragmalinguistics” and sociopragmatics” Pragmalinguistics refers to the resources for conveying communicative acts and relational or interpersonal meanings These resources consist of pragmatic strategies such as directness and indirectness, routines, and an enormous range of linguistic forms which can intensify or soften communicative acts Sociopragmatics refers to the social perceptions underlying participants’ interpretation and performance of communicative action For example, learners can find in pragmalinguistic resources many expressions that can be used to ask for permission, such as “Can I borrow your book?”, “Could I borrow your book?”, or “Is it possible that I could borrow your book?” However, when speakers should use these different expressions depends on whether the social distance between the speakers and the hearers is close or far away They need to consider the different attitudes and social relationships conveyed in these utterances Sometimes if learners not choose the right source for a particular context, they may fail to communicate or make a bad impression on fluent speakers For instance, an American university teacher claims that some of his students behave inappropriately when they come to his office to talk about grades that were lower than they expected They appear to be argumentative, irritated, defensive or rude However, those students are sometimes requesting clarification of why something was not perfect, rather than challenging his authority (Judd, 1999) Similarly, Verschueren (1995) believes that pragmatics or using language to express speakers’ ideas and/or to communicate is a matter of linguistic choice These choices can be among phonology, syntax, lexicon or semantics and they are influenced by contexts involving regional, social or cultural aspects Verschueren suggests that pragmatics relates to all aspects of language and is part of them For example, regarding lexicon, speakers have to decide which of the following utterances is suitable for them to greet their teachers or their classmates: “Good Morning” or “What’s up?” Referring to syntax, speakers choose “He ain’t here” or “He isn’t here,” depending on how informal or formal the situation is Concerning social and cultural features, giving compliments is extremely common among Americans L2 learners may not be used to saying these things so often or may be uncomfortable at being the recipient of a compliment, but socially they need to be aware of this common practice and engage in it themselves at least in moderation (Bardovi-Harlig, 2001) Thus, it is important for learners to develop pragmatic competence in the target language If learners develop pragmatic competence they are then capable of comprehending their interlocutor’s utterances, participating in a conversation, and using turn-taking to make the talk continue They also know which words they should use for the same function but in different contexts For instance, expressing thanks for borrowing a pencil must be different than thanking someone for receiving a lovely, expensive gift Therefore, to achieve successful communication, learners not only need to acquire sources or linguistic forms but also need to acquire how to use them in suitable contexts Thomas (1983) points out that pragmalinguistics can be taught relatively easily because it consists of linguistic forms, but that it is very difficult to teach sociopragmatics as it deals with proper social behavior It is hard to instruct people how to behave appropriately In my opinion, the more difficult it is to use a correct word in the right context, the more students in EFL settings need instruction because they may have no place to practice and observe the language, and rarely teachers address the nuances between L1 and L2 pragmatic behavior Judd (1999), for example, believes that teaching pragmatic skills and speech acts should be included in language curricula and carried out formally Next, I will discuss the possible goals of students and teachers in the development of pragmatic competence What is the Goal of Students and Teachers in the Development of Pragmatic Competence? As we know, English is used as the mother tongue in countries such as America, England or Australia Each country has their own culture, so the speakers of these varieties of English have their own different ways of expressing their ideas and, for example, speech acts such as, thanking, requesting or apologizing, among others People in those countries have various degrees of directness when making requests Even within a country, conversational styles vary from one place to another such as from the east coast to west coast of America (Michaelis, 1992; Tannen, 1981) Therefore, which standard dialect of English should teachers choose to teach students? There is no one standard norm of pragmatics We not have a list of what a person should in a circumstance If we teach students the rules of a situation, we limit students to a specific context Therefore, we can only teach students general tendencies of pragmatics However, students may be temped to overgeneralize, so teachers need to take this into account when they are teaching about these tendencies In addition, in EFL settings, how can teachers know whom their students will encounter? Learners may go abroad to study or work for a foreign company, so they may have contact with native speakers of English in “inner circles” such as America, Britain, Australia, or “outer circles” such as Singapore, India or even in “expanding circles” such as Germany, Poland (Kachru & Nelson, 1996) Therefore, instructors cannot teach students what they should in every possible context Teachers can only raise students’ awareness of proper behavior and provide them with knowledge of pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics with which to react in different situations Referring to learners, adult students want to talk like native speakers? The answer is “yes” and “no.” This relates to students’ desire for convergence with native speaker pragmatics or divergence from native speakers’ practice (Kasper, 1997a) Some learners want to be indistinguishable from native speakers, whereas others want to keep their “special” identity However, it is hard for adults in an EFL environment to achieve the goal of completely talking like a native speaker Research on critical periods for language acquisition has shown that the acquisition of phonology and syntax is constrained by maturational factors (Long, 1992), although those learners were in ESL settings and had many more chances to expose themselves to native speaker speech behavior than EFL students Therefore, speaking English totally like native speakers may not be a realistic teaching goal Teachers should encourage adult learners to the best they can and not expect them to master the L2 completely (Larsen-Freeman, 1991) In addition, adults may have some strong beliefs and values which conflict with the target language, so they not want to or cannot give them up for new values For example, when hearing someone sneeze, Turkish or Greek speakers always say “Gesundheit”, meaning “Bless you” in English (Tannen & Öztek, 1981, p 38) even during an exam or another situation where there should be no talking They would rather behave inappropriately than resist their custom Another factor to consider is that target language speakers may prefer learners to diverge from native speaker norms because that marks non-native speakers from their own community (Kasper, 1997a) Diverging behavior may also be perceived as unproblematic or even particularly nice, and “foreignness” can function as a means to establish friendly relationships between strangers (Kasper, 1997b; Aston, 1993) In short, the goal of learning and teaching pragmatics is very complicated as it depends on many features such as which norm or model teachers and students should follow, whom students may encounter, and to what extent L2 students want to diverge or converge to L1 speaker norms Therefore, suitable instruction in teaching pragmatic ability to learners can raise learners’ awareness of proper behavior How L2 Learners Acquire Pragmatic Competence? It is critical at this point to know how learners acquire pragmatic competence Adult learners have a certain amount of pragmatic knowledge as some pragmatic knowledge is universal and is transferred successfully from L1 (Blum-Kulka, 1991; Ellis, 1994; Kasper, 1992; Kasper, 1997a; Kasper & Rose, 2001; Kasper & Schmidt, 1996) When speakers use their mother tongue to communicate, they know how a conversation takes place, how to start, take turns and close a conversation, and they know how to perform other speech acts, such as what they should say when somebody gives them something or how to express direct or indirect requests Thus, learners already know the basic forms corresponding to different speech acts (Bialystok, 1993) Learners know that re-occurring conversations are not new utterances but directed by routines, and that the strategies of the conversations vary depending on contexts (Coulmas, 1981a; Nattinger & DeCarrico, 1992; Blum-Kulka, 1991) For example, learners can distinguish among direct, indirect and more indirect request forms in “feed the cat”, “can/could/would you feed the cat?” and “the cat’s complaining”, respectively; or identify soft or hard requests such as “I was wondering if you would terribly mind feeding the cat?” (Kasper, 1997a, p 2) Brown & Levinson (1987) also point out that even though there are various expressions of politeness in different countries, there are basic regulations for communicative action and interaction based on such factors as social power, social and psychological distance, and the degree of imposition Speakers in each country have politeness strategies to compensate for face-threatening speech acts For instance, in a study in which subjects were asked to response to a situation of refusing a boss’s invitations to a Sunday party at his home, both American and Japanese’s refusals contained excuses (Beebe, Takahashi & Uliss-Weltz, 1990) Regarding L1 transfer of pragmatics, there are positive and negative forms For the former, learners can benefit from pragmalinguistic knowledge if forms and functions in their L1 are parallel with target language and the forms are used in L2, resulting in the same effect as in L1 For example, in her study, Blum-Kulka (1982) pointed out that learners correctly transfer some routines for requesting “why don’t you” and “do you mind” from English to Hebrew On the other hand, when adult learners transfer pragmatic forms or routines from L1 to L2, they may overuse their pragmatic knowledge, 19 Bardovi-Harlig and Dörnyei (1998) studied how learning environment and proficiency affect learners’ awareness of pragmatics and grammar The results showed that whereas ESL learners paid attention more to pragmatic errors than grammatical errors, EFL learners did the opposite; namely, they focused on grammatical errors more than on pragmatic errors However, Niezgoda and Röverin (2001) replicated BardoviHarlig and Dörnyei’ s study They used the same video-prompted task and asked students to distinguish grammatical from pragmatic errors and rate both errors according to seriousness The results from the ESL group were almost the same as in the previous study, but those of the EFL group differed In fact, the responses of their EFL group were more similar to Bardovi-Harlig and Dörnyei’ s ESL group This suggests that environment may not be the most important condition in raising learners’ pragmatic awareness Thus Niezgoda and Röverin argue that pragmatic awareness can be acquired in the FL environment, meaning the FL classroom What Should Teachers Do to Raise Students’ Awareness and Develop Pragmatic Competence? It is generally agreed that teacher-fronted teaching is the method used in many, if not most, classrooms Does this method help students to be aware of pragmatics and develop pragmatic competence? Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford (1996) suggest that there is no equal status in academic talk (teacher-student talk) in this type of teaching Teachers are always in higher status positions than the students and this may limit learners’ development of pragmatic competence The fact that the teacher talks to introduce new information to students, directs them to practice and develop that information, and supervises whether the input has become intake will limit the kinds of communicative 20 acts students are exposed to (Kasper, 1997a; Kasper 1997b; Kasper, 2001) It appears that in such an environment, students have less chance to negotiate content or the meaning of a task (Rulon & McCreary, 1986) Thus, the teacher-fronted method does not provide students with what they need to communicate outside of the classroom However, Kasper (1997a) states that there are some opportunities for pragmatic learning in teacher-fronted classroom discourse because classroom management is one of the important learning resources in which language serves as a means for communication In EFL settings, it is the classroom where students have a regular opportunity to use the target language for communication Thus, in these environments teachers talking and using L2 for routine activities such as warming up the class, discussing what they had done the previous day or weekend, or what they are going to in a current class would be beneficial for students In related research, Ohta’s (2001) longitudinal study suggests a new look at teacher-fronted Initiation-Response-Follow-up (IRF) routines in terms of learning opportunities To investigate how participation in communicative classrooms relates to the development of learner’s interactional competence, Ohta explored how two adult learners of Japanese as a foreign language developed their ability to use listener responses in Japanese, in particular, in expressions of acknowledgment and alignment such as “Un, mm” (uh, huh) or “Soo desu ne” (it is, isn’t it?) (p 109), respectively The results showed that although learners had limited contact with the Japanese speakers, they move from expression of acknowledgment to expressions of alignment and develop them at different rates, meaning they were sensitive to the pragmatic information available in interactions occurring regularly in the language classroom and benefited from that Ohta 21 claimed that the outcomes were not only beneficial in peer activities but also in teacherfronted IRF interaction In classroom discourse that follows the IRF sequence, the followup turn serves as listener response In Ohta’s corpus, 97% of the follow-up turns are taken by the teachers Although students not have many opportunities to express listener responses productively during IRF, they are exposed to the listener responses of the teacher as “peripheral participants.” Ohta concludes that peer interaction provides students more occasions to use listener responses, but peripheral participation also enhances students’ ability to gradually develop their productive use of assessments and alignments The teacher supports students with explicit guidance on how to use responses Based on the above, many aspects of pragmatic competence can be developed in the classroom and instruction plays an important role in helping learners to be aware of the difference between L1 and L2 pragmatics Teachers should combine input with consciousness raising and communicative practice (Kasper, 1996) to help learners develop their pragmatic competence How, specifically, can this be done? Regarding classroom activities, Cohen (1996) suggests five steps to take when teaching pragmatic topics These steps are: diagnostic assessment, model dialogues, evaluation of a situation, role-play activities, and feedback and discussion for teaching speech acts The first two steps help learners recognize the patterns of speech acts, the next step helps students understand the factors involved in choices of semantic formulas, and the last two give students chances to practice Techniques of teaching pragmatics can be divided into two parts: learners’ perception and production For the perception component, discussing the use of language 22 and pragmatics in L1, helps to raise learners’ pragmatic consciousness This can be helpful because it directs students to understand pragmatic principles which could then be applied to English (Rose 1997) In the author’s study in Hong Kong, while students discussed the various aspects of Cantonese requests in terms of directness, they focused on the appropriateness of language behavior from one language to another Students were also asked to collect Cantonese requests they heard or made, which helped them to become familiar with a number of the important categories of speech acts, and to realize the difference in those categories between their native language and the target language Rose used this activity for English-language teachers, but I think instructors may employ it with high-level adult learners Meier (1997) suggests using learners’ observations to discuss and compare appropriate and inappropriate dialogues to help them understand linguistic behaviors Television, films and videos are also potential sources for FL environments (Rose, 1994; Rose, 1997) to explore functions of pragmatics These types of sources usually provide rich contexts in which language is used, contributing to raising learners’ awareness In a very short excerpt from Woody Allen’s film Annie Hall, Rose found several occurrences of speech acts worth discussing Meier’ s article (in press) encourages the use of films for nonthreatening ways to explore stereotypes, raising awareness of others’ points of view, and observing communication styles In Tateyama’s (2001) study, a student suggested that a video lab, like a language lab, gives students chances to select what situations they want to explore This would help them learn more about cultural differences and how interaction occurs in the target language 23 Regarding learners’ production, Kasper (1997a) claims that role-play, simulation, and drama will help students practice different social roles and speech events, especially in EFL settings Tateyama (2001) suggests that while role-play does not actually reveal the ability of students’ pragmatic knowledge in real-life situations, the tasks involved in role-play require conversational interaction in real time In her study, subjects revealed that they wanted to practice in role-plays in different situations in class One participant indicated that simulation would help him to improve pragmatic ability because he learned best when involved in communicative activities Meier (in press) provides suggestions for concrete examples of role-play and simulations Audiotaped students’ production would be helpful if a school has equipment such as a camcorder for teaching In House’s study (1996), students were exposed to their own pragmatic usage by listening to their own production The teacher or native speaker provided feedback by pointing out what pragmatic features students should focus on in their output In this way, they may “notice” those features and their output could become helpful input Additionally, this seems a very useful method of teaching pragmatics as students not only listen to themselves, but also to their interlocutors’ pragmatic behavior This may help them to understand the consequence of their pragmatic choices Finally, it is necessary to be concerned with teachers’ pragmatic ability in their L2 for non-native speaker teachers and L1 for native-speaker teachers Both types of teachers must enhance their knowledge of pragmatics in order to teach students It is often quite difficult for the former to teach target language pragmatics, and the latter’s intuitions in terms of language use often is not very reliable (Rose, 1997) Their knowledge of pragmatic aspects of language seems equal because native speaker 24 teachers’ metapragmatic and metacultural awareness may be less than that of NNS teachers (Meier, in press) Teachers not always fully understand how pragmatics operate in the target language; they may, in fact, give students wrong information For example, many Japanese learners of English tend to use “should”, when “must” would be more appropriate in some contexts such as “You should (must) be happy that you got a promotion so quickly” (Kasper & Schmidt, 1996, p 161) The reason is teachers in Japan explain that “should” is polite and “must” is impolite Another example is in Takahashi’s (2001) study that I discussed above Japanese students were taught that using monoclausal forms, instead of biclausal ones, to make a request to a high-status and long social distance interlocutor is more suitable Rose (1997) and Cook (2001) also emphasize the importance of language teachers’ education in the pragmatics and sociolinguistics of the target language In Cook’s study, she discovered that explicit instruction in many of the contextualization cues is very difficult in foreign language classrooms because they often co-occur to produce certain social meaning For example, to express good service to customers, sale people in a department store in Osaka use very high formal and honorific forms to address their customers On the contrary, customers only use normal and nonhonorific forms Thus, in order to interpret and produce appropriately utterances, speakers not only need to know their social roles and their interlocutors’ roles but also handle collocation of linguistic forms and the relationship between structures and social features The primary source for native speakers to acquire contextualization convention is through socialization such as family, friends or schools where language is a means of communication rather than an object of examination or analysis Therefore, some native speaker teachers cannot explain or analyze why they use 25 different words in different contexts because they carry out pragmatic functions unconsciously To help students understand these features clearly, teachers need to understand exactly pragmatic functions of linguistic forms to analyze the forms in social contexts Thus, enhancement of teachers’ pragmatic, sociolinguistic, and discoursal knowledge should be a priority Conclusion This paper is intended to help English teachers, especially teachers in EFL settings, understand the importance of pragmatic competence in communication and how learners access it through instruction and classrooms Pragmatic functions are difficult to teach in EFL settings but some aspects are teachable Teachers first need to raise students’ awareness of pragmatics, and then provide opportunities for students to practice Causing students to notice the contextual factors in which one or many possible target language forms can be used would give them the background knowledge to apply in whatever situations they encounter This also helps learners to develop pragmatic competence at the same time increasing their levels of English Development of teachers’ knowledge of pragmatics is crucial because if teachers not understand and master this knowledge, they cannot transmit the cultural meanings underlying language forms to help student achieve successful communication 26 References Aston, G (1993) Notes on the interlanguage of comity In G Kasper & S Blum-Kulka (Eds.), Interlanguage Pragmatics (pp 224-250) New York: Oxford University Press Bardovi-Harlig, K (2001) Evaluating the empirical evidence: Grounds for instruction in pragmatics? 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Entitled: INSTRUCTION AND PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE: HOW ADULT LEARNERS IMPROVE PRAGMATIC ABILITY IN THE CLASSROOM, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE EFL SETTING has been approved as meeting the research... the elevator The learner may interpret “Are you going to walk up?” as the NS asking what the leaner was going to in the future, use the elevator or the stairs In addition to universal pragmatic. .. conventionalization They often need teachers to point out these aspects and to instruct and explain the differences between how some pragmatic strategies are used in L1 and L2 Another issue involves the conditions